In the manufacture of electrical twist-on wire connectors a wire is wound into a spiral core and the spiral core is then inserted into a plastic or insulated housing. To protect the wire junction in the twist-on wire connector a sealant can be inserted into the spiral wire core. When the wires are inserted into the spiral core and twisted one forms a low resistance electrical connector therein. A twist-on wire connectors with a sealant is shown in my U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,113,037; 5,023,402 and 5,151,239.
The use of a wire that is shaped into a spiral thread for insertion into the insulating shell of the twist-on wire connector requires the steps of creating the wire from a raw metal, forming the wire into a spiral core by winding the wire around some type of support and cutting the wire to length. The spiral core can then transferred into an insulated plastic housing which is generally molded through an injection molding process. If the twist-on wire connector includes a sealant a sealant is injected into the spiral core of the twist-on wire connector once the insulating sleeve is positioned around the wire core. The concept of making a twist-on wire connector with a sealant therein is more thoroughly described in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,771,578.
The present invention eliminates the multi-processing required to form a typical twist-on wire connector through the process of molding a spiral core from an amorphous alloy often referred to as bulk metallic glass and then molding the electrical insulating housing around the amorphous alloy spiral core to enable the formation of a twist-on wire connector through a sequence of molding steps. In addition, if the twist-on wire connector is to contain a sealant the sealant can be injected into the cavity in the spiral core. Thus the process of formation of a twist-on wire connector can be formed entirely through a molding process thereby reducing the handling and assembling problems.